Death Leap Is Linked To Defector

November 7, 1985|United Press International

OTTAWA — The wife of a Soviet trade representative plunged to her death from a skyscraper and news reports Wednesday said she was thought to be the woman who jilted KGB defector Vitaly Yurchenko, leading him to return to Moscow.

The Canadian government confirmed that a Soviet trade representative`s wife died in Toronto Tuesday, but refused to say how.

The government had said there appeared to be no link between her death and American news reports that Yurchenko, 49, decided to leave U.S. custody after the wife of a Soviet diplomat in Canada told him their love affair was over.

A spokesman for the Soviet Embassy late Wednesday denied an ABC News report that Svetlana Dedkova was believed to be the woman who abruptly ended a love affair with Yurchenko.

Canadian police sources said the dead Soviet woman, identified by ABC News as Dedkova, plunged to her death in an apparent suicide Tuesday from the 27th floor of a Toronto apartment building.